Good-bye, Grandpa Hinckley

As most of you know by now, President Hinckley has passed away. We will miss his leadership, his humor, and his love. I can only imagine what his reunion with his sweetheart, Marjorie, must have been like. I didn't think I was going to blog about President Hinckley's passing (or Grandpa Hinckley, as he was dubbed in our household about a year ago by Kaia during an FHE - we're not actually related to him), until last night. Kaia & I were looking at pictures in an e-mail about President Hinckley. When we came to this one of Sister Hinckley Kaia simply said: "She's beautiful." The caption for this picture from the photographer reads: "When we first published it, one woman wrote to us and said, 'If people don't believe Mormons are Christians, just have them look at this picture of Sister Marjorie Hinckley.' I so agree."

I have been amazed and inspired that nearly every person who has talked or written about President Hinckley's passing has talked about this reunion with his wife. They were so clear about their deep love and affection for each other through their actions and comments. I'm taking this as a lesson for myself to try to be better at showing my love and respect for Peter.

I also just remembered that I have (sort of) met President Hinckley. A few years ago, I had the opportunity to go with my family to meet Elder Maxwell at the Church offices. As we were walking down the hall to the elevator, we saw President Hinckley come out of a hallway about 50 feet in front of us. His bodyguards looked really concerned, but President Hinckley just lifted his cane in the air and waved at us with it! We all got a good chuckle out of that.